Doctor's Orders
by Mad Server
Summary: Sam takes Dean to the doctor.  S5, supermild slash, outsider POV.


Doctor's Orders

Prompt: _I love the someone gets run-down and gets sick scenario, so how about Dean gets sick again and again with colds and flus, etc., until Sam finally drags him to the hospital. Where they tell him to reduce his stress-levels and he's like, LOL. Sam is unimpressed by his amusement. S4, S5, or beyond would be ideal._

:::

There are two men in the exam room, not one. A pale, sticky-looking guy's doubled over on the exam table, coughing explosively. She can hear the excess of phlegm rattling around in his lungs. The other one's basketball-player tall, hovering close to the sick guy, a hand comfortingly rubbing his knee.

The tall man looks up as she walks in and nods to her, moves his hand up to his friend's shoulder. "Dean," he says into his ear.

The patient regains control and glances up at him, panting. He follows the giant's gaze over to her.

"Hey," he wheezes, touching the back of his wrist to his mouth.

"He's been having trouble hearing out of that ear," the friend hastily explains. Dean rubs his forehead in what looks like embarrassment and snuffles.

"Well that's a start," she says, and sets down her clipboard. She approaches the wan man and smiles. "I'm Christie."

"Dean." He twists away to cough into his palm.

"I'm Sam," the other one fills in, and warmly shakes her hand.

"Hearing loss, nasty-ass cough." Her patient recovers and she probes his neck, assessing the glands. "What else?"

"He's been pretty dizzy." As Sam speaks Dean sniffles and meets her gaze like a man on trial. "Headaches. Fever."

She takes the thermometer off the desk and slides it carefully into his good ear.

"Anything else?" she asks her patient.

He shrugs. "Earache."

"Earache."

"It just seemed like a cold at first," Sam adds, leaning up against the exam bed beside Dean, "but it kept getting worse."

"Hmm," she says, withdrawing her instrument and giving it a glance. She picks up the otoscope and moves around to the bad side, displacing Sam. "This might hurt." Easing the warm lobe down, she delicately inserts the tool.

"Gh." Dean flinches, but forces himself to stay in place, shoulders bunching up.

"Sorry." She turns on the light and examines his canal. "Now there's gonna be a puff of air." She presses the button. He shudders.

"Good." She straightens and sets down the device. "You've got an ear infection."

"That's good?" Sam asks behind her.

"We can treat it." Unwinding her stethoscope from around her neck, she settles it in her ears and points the business end at Dean. "Lift your shirt?"

He sneezes into his arm, moans, and tugs up his tee.

"Sneezing hurt your ear?" Flushing, Dean glances warily at Sam, then nods at her. "We'll take care of that. Deep breath."

He takes one, sneezes twice more and breaks down in a messy-sounding cough.

"Had that cough long?"

"Coming up on three weeks," Sam supplies.

She takes a good listen, then moves around behind her patient and repositions the metal diaphragm. "Let's try that again."

The breaths are full of crackles, but he makes it through all four.

"Well done. Lie down for me."

Dean hesitates, then flattens himself to the table with a grunt and a wheezy sigh. Sam moves around to the foot of the bed and rests his huge hands on her patient's boots.

"Tell me if this hurts, OK?" She taps Dean's chest sharply.

"No," he rasps.

Same thing, other side.

"Feels fine."

She smiles down at his damp face. "Congratulations. You don't have pneumonia."

Sam shifts and breathes out hard.

"I'm prescribing you antibiotics for the ear infection," she tells Dean. "Take them. All of them."

"Aye-aye." He pushes himself upright and groans, blanching.

"I gotcha." Sam sidles up and braces him. "See? So dizzy."

She tsks sympathetically. "These'll clear that right up." She scrawls out prescription, then tears it off and hands it to Sam. He pockets it, but looks troubled. "Anything else?"

"It's just... before this cold, there was that other one, and before that there was the flu, and before that..."

"Sam..." Dean coughs helplessly into the other man's side.

"I just think..." Sam soothes her patient's back. "Something's wrong, you know? He never used to get sick like this, and now..."

She settles back against the desk and considers them. "Any big changes lately? New job, new house? Family stuff?"

They exchange an unreadable look.

"Have you been under any extra stress?"

Dean hacks into Sam's shirt, which morphs into laughter. He glances up at Sam, then at her as if to share the joke, and cackles until his eyes are streaming and his face is red. The tall man sets his jaw and glances at the wall as if for support.

"I'm sorry... so that's a yes?"

"Yeah," Sam grits out. "He's been stressed."

"Well, that's probably your problem right there."

Dean's gone back to coughing, and he brings up an impressive-sounding gob and spits it into his own tee. "I'll get right on that," he gasps.

"Listen to yourself. You can hardly breathe. You can't go on like this, man."

"Right, so I'll just... I'll stop worrying about that thing. Not like it'll be the end of the world or anything." He says this slowly, his glassy gaze fixed on his friend.

Sam sighs and turns back to her. "If... stressing factors... are going to stay in the picture, what do you recommend?"

She shrugs. "Exercise, balanced diet, bubble baths, herbal tea. What do you like to do to relax?"

Dean snickers and then sneezes. He cups his bad ear protectively. "I've got my ways."

"Drinking's one," Sam interjects, earning himself a cutting glare.

"How many a week?"

"A lot."

"Well, that's not going to help. Puts a lot of strain on your system, runs you down. See if you can cut back."

Dean steps clumsily off the bed and clutches it for support. "Thanks doc. I think we're done here." Sam reaches for his elbow but Dean shrugs him off, peaky and stony-faced.

She stands too. "Take care of yourself, Dean." She waves at Sam and shuts the door behind her, then heads back to the office for her next chart. She gives herself until the end of the hall to pretend that they're all better and they're hers.


End file.
